By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — A Leland, Miss., soybean producer was elected chair of the United Soybean Board (USB) during the organization’s annual meeting Dec. 8-9 in St. Louis.

During the gathering, which also allowed the USB to evaluate the previous year’s accomplishments and determine progress on recent soybean checkoff research and promotions, an Illinois woman was elected secretary and an Indiana man, to a spot on the USB’s executive committee.

Marc Curtis, the new USB chair, also grows wheat and corn on his Washington County farm with his wife, Sheryl. During a break in the USB meeting, Curtis outlined three goals he hopes to achieve: establishing a facilitated discussion process to continue building a strong relationship with the American Soybean Assoc. (ASA), the reconstruction of the U.S. Soybean Council and a complete organizational analysis of the USB.

“There are unfinished items I wanted to continue to work on, and I laid out these goals for the board,” he said. “The first of these goals is to improve the relationship between the USB and the ASA. The second is to finish what I have labeled the reconstruction of the U.S. Soybean Council, our internal marketing contractor. We started around a year and a half ago and hopefully we can finish that up this year.

“Finally, I want us to step back from our operations here at the USB and take a good, hard look at the way we do things. We have a significant increase in funding due to the increase in the price of soybeans, and we need to make sure we’re still delivering the six-to-one return on investments that we’ve been able to give our soybean farmers in the past.”

Curtis previously served as USB vice chair, chair of the Financial Audit Committee and of Global Opportunities and a member of the Research Infrastructure Task Force. Other past leadership positions Curtis held with USB include treasurer, Production Committee member, and a stint on its Analytical Measurements & Market Standards Initiative Leadership Team.

In addition, he served as past president of the ASA and as a past member of the QUALISOY board of directors. A member of the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Mississippi Soybean Assoc., Curtis is also a conservation district commissioner. He received a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Also elected to USB leadership positions during the meeting were Vanessa Kummer of North Dakota (vice chair), Sharon Covert of Illinois (secretary) and Jim Stillman of Iowa (treasurer). Phil Bradshaw of Illinois moved into the position of immediate past president after the election of Curtis.

Covert is a Tiskilwa, Ill., corn and soybean farmer who completed her second USB term in 2010. She received her education from Bradley University and Illinois Valley Community College, before becoming a registered nurse at Methodist Medical Center in Peoria.

A former Illinois Soybean Assoc. (ISA) district director, Covert is a member of the ISA, ASA, Illinois Farm Bureau and Bureau County Farm Bureau.
Jim Schriver of Montpelier, Ind., was elected to a position on the USB’s Executive Committee. He serves as an ex-officio director of the Indiana Soybean Alliance and joins three other Indiana farmers on the USB committee.
Curtis looks forward to working with the 15 new USB officers, board members and executive committee members to continue to build on a successful year for the soybean industry.

“We had the fourth record export crop and we grew a record crop (in 2010),” he said. “We registered 32 new uses for commercialization of soybeans last year. And we continued our support of the animal agriculture industry, our number-one customer.”